Overthinking Individualism
You Don't Have to Be a Nonconformist to be an Individualist
This essay was sparked by a recent conversation I had with a group of friends about conformity, competition, and imitation (mimesis). Interestingly, it quickly became apparent that I was both the person in the group least affected by the social dynamic in question, and the most inclined to defend the principles of striving, competition, and achievement (and the market order which was the subtext of the conversation). I was also in the unique position of being the only person in the group who attended a particular university whose students came in for (what I felt was) an unfair amount of criticism. Being by nature a little different from the average person (though by no means alone in this regard) in that I find it takes more work to match my behavior to that of any group than it does to just live the way I want to live, I have to say I felt very little pressure to conform to any stereotype during any part of my time there, and when I did encounter such pressure I laughed.
While it wasn’t explicitly put this way, the question of the conversation was, “Is it possible to be authentic in ‘The Age of Irony?’”1 or “Is everyone just posing and imitating (or reverse-imitating) others, rather than being their own person?” A certain type of person who grew up in a certain region of the country and attended certain schools and was assumed by some in the conversation to represent the ‘typical’ student at my alma mater came in for perhaps an unfair amount of criticism. In my opinion, this type of young person has lived a rather sheltered life in a particularly homogeneous community and should be cut a little slack for believing that this was the only way to be. However, this young person is characterized by a desire for status and success for their own sake, rather than a desire to achieve any particular goal. He or she wants to be thought interesting by other people, but doesn’t know what he or she is actually interested in. He or she wants to be better than other people at something, but doesn’t particularly care what that something is.
Overthinking Individualism:
It seems to me that the problem is that too many Americans, both those who engage in striving and those who reject it, are overthinking individualism. They believe that it is hyper-expressive, that it requires reinventing the wheel (rejecting what other people do, or have done), that it is radically egalitarian and subjectivist (each of us has to invent morality for ourselves, rather than relying on tradition, religion, and the institutions to which we belong), and that it requires authenticity or nonconformity. By trying too hard for authenticity, too many young people fail to achieve it. Instead, if all they did was be genuine with other people (e.g., by avoiding pretense), they would be authentic without trying.
Individualism does have a component of self-expression, but otherwise it doesn’t require any of the rest of that. All individualism represents is a moral advance premised on the idea that every individual is in possession of a few basic rights (life, liberty, property) which would be morally wrong for society to disregard or subvert merely for instrumental purposes. Individuals are not pawns to be used. That is individualism.
That these rights are not unlimited, that individualism does not mean individuals can demand society give them everything (or anything), that it does not require always placing the individual’s interest above that of the group, does not mean that it isn’t a moral advance (over tribalism) to insist that sometimes the group’s interest does not outweigh the individual’s.
This moral case for individualism is illustrated in my story “It Mattered to Him,” about an indigenous tribe which sacrifices a young man “for the greater good of the tribe.” In the story, the tribal elders insist that his murder was morally right, and that his lover is wrong to mourn him. After all, the tribe goes on. The world goes on. The human race goes on. But he doesn’t go on. He is gone and even if his life only mattered to him and to the woman he loved, that doesn’t mean it didn’t matter at all.
A modern example today would be if a nation decided it was in the interest of the commonwealth to seize the wealth of a multi-billionaire and distribute his money equally to all citizens. Most citizens would be made better off by this. Most of them do not know him and presumably will not mourn his loss. But the interest of the nation is not higher than the interest of the individual in this case, because for the nation to do this would be immoral. That is individualism. We can live our lives enmeshed in institutions and community, or we can live them in deracinated wandering, and so long as we respect this basic principle of individual liberty and natural rights, our society would be individualistic in the best sense.
The Self:
The reason so many young Americans overthink individualism is that they believe the self is something one creates, or something one invents, or something one constructs,2 rather than something one has, or something one is. But the hero in my story is the most tribal, least individualistic person imaginable, and yet when he dies, something is gone from the world which can never be recovered.3 He never constructs an identity or invents a persona. He spends his entire existence enmeshed in an all-encompassing community. But he has an independent existence nonetheless.
It is cliché to say that everyone is unique in the way that every snowflake is unique. But it is also true in a very simple way. Every falling snowflake is separate from every other. But while most snowflakes aren’t all that dissimilar from every other snowflake, they aren’t exactly the same either. Human beings aren’t interchangeable drones, even though we share common similarities and all possess the same basic, unchanging human nature.
One doesn’t have to think about questions of identity, or “find oneself,” or create oneself, or go against the grain to be an individual. One doesn’t have to do anything at all. One is an individual. One has a self whether one likes it or not.4 One’s self is not synonymous with one’s personality, nor with one’s clothing, behavior, self-expression, tastes, or aspirations. Those things can be related, but they don’t matter nearly so much as people think.
I suspect that many people who are unsure about any of this have not spent enough time alone with their thoughts (i.e., long periods without external stimulation from digital media, music, radio, television, books, conversation with other people, etc.). If one “can’t hear what one thinks” because one is constantly surrounded by content created by other people, perhaps one needs to “touch grass” as the kids say these days. If one spends time alone walking in the woods, the chatter goes away and one will find that one can think more clearly.
But, some will say, all of this might be true and isn’t it still the case that almost everything anyone does is simply a reaction to what other people are doing? Either we conform (go along with majority culture), or explicitly don’t conform (wear our rejection of majority culture on our sleeves). Nobody can ever just “be themselves.”
Well, most of what I do isn’t in response to what other people are doing. If it occurs to me to do a certain thing, and to do it a certain way, I will usually try it and see what happens. It’s not that I spend time thinking about being a nonconformist, or that I never consider what other people are doing when making decisions. It is simply that, for as long as I can remember, I have always considered other factors first, including especially what I wanted to do. Then, I consider what other people are doing and I try to use that information to inform my decision.5 But I don’t base my decisions about what to do, or wear, or drink, or eat, or say, solely on what other people are doing, or wearing, or consuming, or saying.
Everyone could do this. One doesn’t have to wear a suit and tie to be a conformist or a rock concert t-shirt to be a “nonconformist.”6 One just needs to consider other factors beyond simply imitation or reverse imitation.
For instance, sometimes it is a good idea to conform to what other people are doing. Perhaps if they are all doing it a certain way, there is a good reason for that. Perhaps not. If there is, it would be foolish to reject that reason unless one has a better reason for doing it a different way.
Let’s take the example of clothing. One’s clothing doesn’t need to make a statement (one way or the other). It doesn’t need to draw attention. Everyone needs to wear clothing every day. One doesn’t need to spend time thinking about whether one’s choices will put them into a category (conformist, stiff, bourgeoisie) or another (nonconformist, bohemian). One could consider the following questions, “Does this look good? Does it look good on me? Does it demonstrate a willingness to spend effort and time and attention, or does it demonstrate sloppiness, laziness, and a lack of regard for other people? Am I attending a function at which there is an expectation for a certain standard of dress? If so, do I have a good reason for not conforming to that standard?7 Does this choice demonstrate respect for the institution to which I belong and the other people who care about it?”
Clothing doesn’t matter all that much, so it’s fine to conform, or not, as one sees fit. An individual self is something one has, not something one consumes or something one puts on. Once one realizes that, one isn’t insecure about it and doesn’t feel the need to express it at all times or draw attention to it.
What if one doesn’t like one’s self? What if one wishes to be different?
An individual identity has more to do with what one does than with what one wears or says. One can change one’s behavior by changing one’s habits. If one wants to be a person who hikes, one can go hiking. If one wants to be a person who reads books, one can read books and one will become a person who reads books. If one wants to be a person who fishes, one can fish. And if one decides one doesn’t like fishing, one can find something else which one does like to do. Human beings learn from experience and one has to try many things and do many things to find out what one likes to do. Then, when one finds out what one likes to do, one can do those things.
Belonging to an Institution:
If an individual self is something one has, and something which one can’t really lose and which can’t really be taken away from one, one need not worry about losing one’s independence by joining an institution. There are very good reasons to belong to institutions.
For instance, if you believe as I do that each of us is an individual because each of us is created by God in His image, you will know that we are called as individuals to worship together in the institution of the church. You may also believe as I do that the institution of the family is the foundation of society, and that therefore marriage and children are the right choice. Within a family, unlike within a larger society, each member is a distinct individual and is loved as an individual by the other members of the family.
Within any institution, we each have our roles to carry out, and the right thing to do is to carry them out. One mistake many people in America today make is that they believe that in order to be authentic individuals, they need to demonstrate their “independence” by using their institutions as platforms upon which to perform (i.e., as vehicles for their self-expression). We have been told by other people that in order to be individuals we need to be “rebels.” And so we look for something to rebel against.
But one doesn’t need to rebel against anything, or reject anything, to be an individual. Again, one is an individual. And presumably, if one makes a decision to join an institution, one believes in the purpose and mission of the institution, one should put that purpose and mission above one’s personal desire for attention. Otherwise, one shouldn’t be a part of the institution. Only if the institution does something wrong or treats one poorly, should one “rebel” against the institution (and there is a right way and a wrong way to go about such a thing).
Belonging to a Group:
It’s important to have friends. If ones’ friends are genuine, one probably doesn’t have to worry about any of this. However, in any group of friends, there will be times when the group wants one to do something that one doesn’t want to do. If one has a good reason for doing so, one should be willing to disappoint one’s friends. In the long run, people will respect more a person who demonstrates a willingness to make their own decisions (not out of any desire to “make their own decisions,” but because they already have an idea of what they want to do and not do)8 than they will someone who does what everyone wants in order to fit in.
In college I generally found, even in spaces others deemed “conformist,” that there was virtually no real pressure to do anything. Nobody ever tried to coerce me to do something I didn’t want to do, and I’ve always found that if I make it obvious I’m not going to do a certain thing, people don’t bother me about it. Sometimes I have to admit that I don’t entirely know what other people are talking about, because we could walk into the same room or go to the same party or sit in the same class and as far as I can tell their isn’t any social pressure to do anything, while they will feel stifled and unable to move. The difference seems to me to be this: I don’t care that there is a social expectation, and will ignore it until forced not to ignore it by the presence of some actual coercion, but there rarely is any.
Sure, is there social pressure to conform? Of course. That’s life. Are there negative consequences sometimes to being a little different?9 Sure. Every action in life has consequences. If one is willing to accept the consequences for one’s actions and behavior, one can live how one wants to live. Is it uncomfortable to make one’s own decisions when other people expect one to behave like them? Sure. But less uncomfortable than I think people think, and most people can get used to the discomfort through exposure until they don’t even notice it anymore.
The Counterargument:
The best counterargument which might be offered at this point would be to point out that most people are not like me. Someone like me genuinely does not perceive much social pressure, has a strong sense of self and firm boundaries, and therefore actually receives less social pressure than many other people (because people find out quickly peer pressure doesn’t work on me and quit bothering). But most people are more externally motivated than me and will naturally place more importance on social desirability. They are more other-directed and other-focused.10 They will perceive more social pressure in any given situation than I do, and they will actually experience more.
But nobody needs to be like me to stop overthinking individualism. Nobody needs to have my personality. One doesn’t need to stop caring about what other people think, in fact one should care what other people think. Just not to an excessive degree, or to the exclusion of everything else one should care about, and not in the way many people do.
Besides, at the end of the day, I’m not that different from other people. I’m a human being like anyone else. Human beings are mimetic creatures. We are social creatures. But we aren’t simply mimetic and social creatures. I just chose a long time ago to emphasize aspects of my personality which made me more immune to social pressure, and because I was rewarded for this (i.e., life is better when you can ignore little games people play with conformity vs. “nonconformity” or trying to one-up each other) those habits of mine were reinforced. Anyone can learn to do this – it just takes work and practice and experience, but almost everything in life requires work and practice and experience and habit.
In fact, it is because people think that in order to be their own person they have to be wholly original, or that they have to stand out in a distinct way, that they struggle so much with social pressure to conform (or not conform). When people realize they actually don’t need to bother at all, because none of it matters, they are often able to learn to make their own decisions, and they stop worrying so much about whether or not they’re being an individual or conforming to the herd.
When one is insecure, because one believes one has to do some kind of identity construction, or self-finding, one imagines social pressure to be even greater than it is. When one is comfortable in one’s own skin, much of this social pressure evaporates and one is able to move easily through different walks of life.
How does one stop overthinking individualism and go about developing this self-confidence?
By doing things. Taking action. Learning through experience. Trying new things. Going and having adventures. Not by tweeting, or by watching motivational videos, or even by ruminating (not that there is inherently anything wrong with those activities). The more a person gets out and does “real stuff,” the less that person worries about the games people play, and the more those games will seem increasingly unreal, and the more one will stop worrying about whether or not one is an individual, because one knows the answer to that question in one’s bones.
The answer is, “Yes. Unless you spend all your time on digital media, where fakery abounds.”
i.e., radical subjectivism.
Also, he does not want to die. He is told this is wrong of him, and he believes he is doing something morally wrong at first by wanting to live. Before he dies, he finally realizes the truth.
I was once told that there are young people today who have grown up with phones and who don’t believe they are individuals anymore. While I’m not sure I believe this (the Soviet Union tried brainwashing children from birth into something like this and it didn’t work, although I suppose a certain type of clever American who has listened to too many Sam Harris podcasts can come to believe such a thing), it still wouldn’t matter. These young people have selves whether they believe themselves to have them or not. As C.S. Lewis explained, there is an objective reality which exists outside of us and operates independently from our beliefs about it, and our beliefs can either be in accord with this reality or not. If a tree falls in a forest, it creates soundwaves whether or not any human being hears them.
Okay, usually I will consider what other people are doing. Sometimes I don’t think about what other people are doing at all, and perhaps I could do a better job of considering what other people are doing before just going ahead and doing something my way and finding out the hard way other people don’t like it.
One might say that in this day and age something closer to the opposite is true.
If one wants to flaunt that expectation, one had better have a good reason. Otherwise, one is being a selfish jerk.
From an early age, I rarely needed other people to give me something to do. Once I reached high school, I found that I could operate independently, because I had a vision for how I wanted to live and mainly needed space in which to carry out that vision. I firmly believe almost anyone can do that. If we are given (if we give ourselves) the space to build a life, we can generally do a fine job at it. Obviously, none of this should require or imply totally ignoring or rejecting other people’s advice, counsel, desires, beliefs, hopes, etc. One’s vision might need correction at times. However, if given individual liberty (the space in which individuals build their lives), most people will find themselves perfectly capable of building a good life, even though there is no guarantee that they will all succeed.
But even if you are different, most people don’t really even think that much of it. Beyond, a quick, “oh that guy is weird,” they generally have other things to think about.
I don’t think any of these particular personality traits make one more or less moral. Externally motivated people are not necessarily vainer and shallower. Other-directed people are not necessarily more generous or loving. Charles Manson and Jim Jones were likely very other-directed.